Native Instruments Releases Komplete Kontrol S-Series Keyboards, Komplete 10

komplete-kontrol-s-series

Native Instruments today released the Komplete Kontrol S-Series control keyboards and the latest generation of Komplete and Komplete Ultimate software bundles.

Here’s the official intro video:

Key Features:

  • The Komplete Browser unifies the instruments in Komplete, delivering tag-based access to all Instrument presets from one plug-in interface. Instead of browsing by instrument, users can now search by sound.
  • Native Map technology automatically maps all key parameters for each Instrument to the touch-sensitive controller knobs – all clearly visible on the keyboards’ Clear View display. Each instrument was carefully mapped by NI sound designers to arrange the most relevant parameters on pages laid out on the keyboard’s display.
  • The Light Guide shows key switches, zones, and more on multi-color LEDs positioned just above the keys. For example, key switches for Kontakt Instruments such as Action Strikes are illuminated in one color, while keys used for performance are lit with another. This puts the instrument’s layout on the keyboard at a glance without having to look at the software. The lights also provide performance feedback – scales, chords, and arpeggios light up across the keyboard as they are played.
  • The keyboards also offer Smart Play features, designed to accelerate workflow and stimulate new ideas. Chord mode lets producers play complex chords with single keys. Chord Set mode provides ready-to-play progressions that can inspire and augment original compositions or add new flavor to remixes. The integrated scale mapping features deliver fast access to new melodic possibilities – notes of the currently selected scale light up on the Light Guide. Many widely-used musical scales can also be mapped to the white keys. ‘Wrong’ notes can be automatically re-mapped so melodies are always in tune. The arpeggiator works seamlessly with every Komplete Instrument. And the eight controller knobs manage parameters such as direction, rate, rhythm, patterns, and variations.
  • Two touch-sensitive Touch Kontrols can mimic the behavior of pitch and mod wheels, or physical objects like springs and bouncing balls, for interesting modulation curves.
  • Keyboard functionality such as key splits and Touch Kontrol behavior also function when using the keyboards as a standard MIDI controller, opening these control innovations to instruments outside the Komplete universe.

Here’s a playlist of Komplete Kontrol S-Series videos that goes into more detail:

Komplete 10 and Komplete 10 Ultimate include six new instruments:

  • Rounds – a new synth that combines digital and virtual analog engines
  • Kontour – Native says that this instrument “allows you to create stunningly organic textures, going from mallets to plucked and bowed strings to distorted, aggressive and noisy sounds”.
  • Polyplex – described as “a fast, fun way to design your own drum kits”
  • Three new sampled pianos that make up The Definitive Piano Collection.

See our previous post on Komplete 10 and Komplete 10 Ultimate for full details.

Pricing

Komplete Kontrol S-Series keyboards:

  • Komplete Kontrol S25 is available for $499 USD/499 EUR.
  • Komplete Kontrol S49 is available for $599 USD/599 EUR.
  • Komplete Kontrol S61 is available for $699 USD/699 EUR.

Komplete 10 and Komplete 10 Ultimate:

  • Komplete 10: $499 / 499 €
  • Komplete 10 Ultimate: $999 / 999 €

34 thoughts on “Native Instruments Releases Komplete Kontrol S-Series Keyboards, Komplete 10”

  7. 499 for a 25key keyboard!!! My god, does include any software? Or do you have to spend another 999 in order to use it to its full potential..?

  11. This seems over priced and very 10 years ago technology wise. Maybe roland and native instruments know something that everyone else doesnt – the vst renissance will follow the analog renissance 🙂

  12. I would love it if Native would take the next step, and make it so that their VST’s would actually run on their controllers.

  13. i love NI software, but hate the NI hardware

    KORE is the ultimate controller
    Discontinued
    KORE2 is the ultimate controller
    Discontinued
    MASCHINE is the ultimate controller
    no wait …
    MASCHINE STUDIO is the ultimate controller
    no wait …
    Komplete Kontrol is the ultimate controller
    no wait …

      1. no, but it was disappointing how hard they encouraged us to “kore-ify” everything not once but twice back then, purchase expansions etc, and then just unceremoniously discontinue or move on…. but I agree, progress demands some sort of sad obsolescence obviously, it’s just at those prices, you want to hope its going to still be relevant/usable in 8 years… NI makes some great products, and the OG Maschine still works with their new software (albeit without the sexy led’s), and I guess so does Kore to some degree, but they should probably stop calling everything “ultimate”, as it means the final or “the best achievable or imaginable of its kind.”, not this years version of cool whiz-bang.

  15. Is it just me or does NI seem to have an Office of Arrogance & Aggravation? I keep shying away from them because I’m suspicious of their BS factor, as with the KORE business. Razor and Prism are outstanding synths, but as with a pretty woman who acts like a high-school $#@!, who needs the grief? NI needs some better sense of design and a PR person. I watched the lackluster demo and my biggest question is: Why are you charging so much for a keyboard mechanism that sounds like a loose screen door clattering in the wind? ACK!! PBBFFTT!!

  16. FATAR keybeds are not cheap, and have a very nice action. The difference between the FATAR keybed on my Virus TI2 and the cheap plastic keybeds on most MIDI controllers is night and day. I’m not sure what all the hate is. Would you rather pay $299 for a cheap, plastic-feeling keybed that you would never want to play anything on, or would you rather pay $599 for a quality keybed that can be your main studio controller?

    That being said, I probably won’t by this as I already have the Virus TI2. I just don’t understand people that bitch about price. Quality costs money. I’ve learned over the years that I’d rather have 1 solid controller than a dozen plastic toys. There is a huge difference between toys and instruments, in both price and quality.

  17. I feel like I’ve seen this same story posted multiple times here and at Sonic State. It just keeps getting reposted without any new information. Is NI paying for these placements? I don’t have a problem with that, but if they aren’t, it seems really weird how much (repetitive) coverage these controller keyboards are getting.

  19. I could perhaps throw my money on this if I really could do EVERYTHING in Native Instruments environment. At the moment I just cannot do the arrangement in Maschine, for example.

  20. I would like to start this off by saying I was kompletely optimistic about the Kontrol S series keyboard and figured that it would enhance my music production ten fold.

    I was very impressed by the pitch and modulator strip I felt like this was something kompletely necessary in order to easily attain the trippy sound out of my synthesizers that I so crave.

    More importantly I was extremely excited at the selling point of the scale and chord features toying around with chords and to build proper progressions is where majority of my time is spent along with finding the notes that fall in within the scale after my progressions are built.

    I figured this would be a perfect match for me. I couldn’t have been more wrong about anything in my life. That this device hindered my process let me explain why below.

    1st off the way the product’s power supply and usb were placed in the box I had to mutilate the box in order to retrieve these components. This was a major red flag right here, (2. ) Next I found that the product doesn’t work with 10.7.5 only 10.8 and higher. In an attempt to be able to use this product I reluctantly upgraded my computer software to Maverick in order to be able to get some use out of my $700 purchase. The kontrol comes with its own software to browse through your presets much like the browsers that maschine has forever had for finding presets nothing new as a maschine and maschine studio owner I’ve been browsing through my komplete library like this for a while now. There’s no way to record in this program so you can’t harness your creativity ….. pointless if you ask me I don’t want to make sounds I can’t apply to projects.

    FORGOT TO MENTION THIS THING HAS NO INSTRUCTIONS WHAT SO EVER… “AWSOME” HIGHLY INFORMATIVE.. I KNOW.

    My main daw is Native Instruments Maschine next in line would be Apple’s logic. Guess what the product did not work with, its own manufactures program Maschine wasn’t this awesome Choice. I cannot use this product with my maschine, so in an attempt to finally see how this works with other DAW’s I updated my version of Logic.

    After the update I went through the necessary steps to get everything working. I finally got to test out my selling points (Chord Progressions & The modulator as well as pitch strips). The modulators didn’t work inside logic.

    Also the chord progressions are not midi out all of the features of the keyboard are reliant on you using the kontrol plugin. WHY AM I COMPLAINING YOU ASK. WHEN YOU CHANGE THE CHORD PROGRESSIONS IN THE PARAMETERS AFTER I’VE RECORDED, IN THE PLAYBACK THE ENTIRE COMPOSITION IS ALTERED TO THE SET OF PROGRESSIONS I HAVE SWITCHED TO.

    NOTHING IS PERMANENT…… YOU CANNOT COMBINE DIFFERENT PROGRESSIONS. THERE’S MO MIDI OUT- THE DAW ONLY RECORDS THE NOTE YOU PRESS AND THE KONTROL PLUGIN ITSELF PLAYS THE CHORDS IN IT’S PARAMETER./….. (ARP IS ALSO NON MIDI OUT)

    ESSENTIALLY TO COMBINE PROGRESSIONS YOU WOULD HAVE TO OPEN MULTIPLE INSTANCES OF THE PROGRAM AND PLAY NOTE BY NOTE SWITCHING BETWEEN THESE INSTANCES TO COMBINE PROGRESSIONS.

    YOU ARE LIMITED TO THE KONTROL PROGRAM AND IT ONLY TO ACCESS THE FEATURES. THIS IS LIMITING NOT LIMITLESS. IT HINDERS MY PROCESS BY FAR. AT THIS POINT I REALIZE I WAS TOO EAGER TO BY INTO A DREAM THAT N.I. WAS SELLING I NOW KNOW AND THANKFULLY CAN RETURN MY PRODUCT as it’s only been one day.

    I WOULD HAVE A LOT LESS ISSUES WITH THIS ON A LOWER PRICE POINT BUT FOR $700 I WANT MIDI THAT I CAN DROP INTO ANY DAW OR PRESET NOT JUST THE KOMPLETE KONTROL SOFTWARE.

    THERE ARE SOME COOL FEATURES THAT COME WITH THE PRODUCT LIKE THE HOST PARAMETER CONTROLS THE CHORDS SCALES ARP AND TOUCH STRIPS BUT NOT FOR LIMITED USE WITHIN ONE PROGRAM THAT’S JUST PLAIN PIMPERY AND I’M NOT DOWN FOR A $700 LOSS.

    I SAW THAT THERE WILL BE MASCHINE INTEGRATION IN THE NOVEMBER UPDATE. THE FACT THAT I WOULD RELEASE A PRODUCT THAT DOESN’T WORK WITH MY OWN SOFTWARE IS ON A LEVEL OF INCOMPETENCE THAT I CANNOT COMPREHEND.

    I FEEL THAT THIS WAS RUSHED NOW THAT I’M GETTING EMAILS ABOUT TRAKTOR, I FEEL LIKE THIS WAS AN ATTEMPT TO GET SOMETHING OUT FOR THE HOLIDAYS. IF YOU DON’T OWN A MASCHINE THIS COULD BE A GOOD FIT FOR YOU IF YOU DO DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME.

    N.I. HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF THE MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANY’S IN MY OPINION I’VE USED THERE PRODUCTS SINCE 16 I’M 22 NOW I LOVE THE BRAND AND THE PRODUCTS THE HAVE BUT THIS WAS TOM FOOLERY YOU FELL OFF WITH THIS ONE BUT IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO GET BACK ON THE HORSE, HOPEFULLY YOU SURPRISE ME IN THE UPCOMING UPDATES. Maybe I’ll buy the controller again in the future but for now it’s a waste.

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